Google slammed for tainting search to hype Google+ social networking

Google's attempt to force its social network, Google+, upon search users is backfiring, as tech pundits and tech companies slam the search giant for neglecting its core mission.

Although this bad result has nothing to do with Google+, "this type of relevancy screw-up feels like another bit of evidence that Google's original core mission, delivering awesome search results, is being forgotten," Sullivan writes.

Strangely, Google has met these attacks only with silence. That's quite a difference from a year ago, when pundits were attacking "content farms," and Google promised to work on the issue. It's easy to address search relevance issues when they're being caused by outside sources. But when Google itself is under fire for sabotaging its own search relevance, the company is short on answers.